{"id":635,"date":"2011-05-13T11:10:16","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T15:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/?p=635"},"modified":"2011-05-13T11:10:16","modified_gmt":"2011-05-13T15:10:16","slug":"book-review-of-poke-the-box-by-seth-godin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/book-review-of-poke-the-box-by-seth-godin","title":{"rendered":"Book Review of “Poke The Box” by Seth Godin"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a small book of only about 85 pages, so it\u2019s a pretty quick read. I\u2019m not a fast reader by any stretch of the imagination, and it doesn\u2019t help my reading speed that I always read with a red pen and yellow highlighter in hand. Even at my speed, I finished the book in about 2 hours.
\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

This little book is all about starting \u2013 Seth Godin actually calls it a manifesto about starting.<\/p>\n

He talks about this from the perspective that if you start something, then it will get finished.\u00a0 This of course, means that you are taking constant action as well. He doesn\u2019t talk about starting in the typical entrepreneurial way you might think about it \u2013 that you start a bunch of projects but never come back to them because you get distracted by the next shiny object.\u00a0 Not at all.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, one of the reasons he says people don\u2019t start is the fear of failing and the fact that there is risk involved. News flash\u2026there is risk involved in doing anything \u2013 to include the choice of not doing anything, not taking any action or risk. Seems to me, that\u2019s the riskiest choice you could possibly make. And, certainly, the more you do, the more chances you take, the more you put yourself out there, the more you will fail (or have challenges).<\/p>\n

My take on this is that you only really fail when you stop trying. Quitting is failure. Getting back up and trying something else, moving forward, and continuing on is the way you have success. You don\u2019t fail until you stop.<\/p>\n

Another interesting point is the for a lot of us we are just as afraid of the possibility that what we are starting will work as we are that it won\u2019t work.\u00a0 Give some thought to the question of what is it that you are afraid of. And, remember, the cost of doing nothing is much higher than the cost of doing something.<\/p>\n

The great thing about being a small business owner or entrepreneur is that we get to choose what\u2019s worth doing and what\u2019s not. We get to decide what to spend time on, what to take the initiative to start and what not to.\u00a0 There is no map you have to follow. Cool, huh?<\/p>\n

Along those same lines, since nothing is guaranteed to be safe, Seth advocates that you might as well do something that matters.\u00a0 I concur 100%.<\/p>\n

This is a book that will make you think about how you\u2019re doing things in your life and your business. For me, that\u2019s always a good thing.<\/p>\n

I hope you\u2019ll join me in starting more things that really matter, more things that can make a really big difference (and I\u2019ll challenge you that this isn\u2019t as hard or as big as it might seem when you remember one change you make in somebody\u2019s life can ripple out to touch thousands and thousands of others. That\u2019s what I call making a real difference) and taking more of an initiative to start things that really, really matter to you\u2026that you feel passionate about.<\/p>\n

Let me know if you\u2019re willing to take the challenge with me\u2026.<\/p>\n

PS \u2013 one more thing\u2026if you get this book in hardback, check out the inside of the dustcover \u2013 it\u2019s pretty cool, something I\u2019ve never seen before and there\u2019s no explanation for it that I found in the book.\u00a0 I was intrigued.<\/p>\n

Poke the Box<\/a>\"\"<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a small book of only about 85 pages, so it\u2019s a pretty quick read. I\u2019m not a fast reader by any stretch of the imagination, and it doesn\u2019t help my reading speed that I always read with a red pen and yellow highlighter in hand. Even at my speed, I finished the book…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[29,13,48,52,10,30,12,66,708,59,64,63,44,65],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles-book-reviews","tag-business","tag-complete-marketing-systems","tag-diane-gail","tag-diane-and-gail","tag-diane-conklin","tag-entrepreneur","tag-gail-saseen","tag-initiative","tag-articles-marketing","tag-marketing-strategy","tag-poke-the-box","tag-seth-godin","tag-small-business","tag-starting"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":639,"href":"https:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.completemarketingsystems.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}